Situations, Issues, & Learning Points

Situation 6 – you need to create a communication strategy to keep anxiety down and maintain morale of employee's during the company merger

Key points:

• 75% of staff either speak little or no English

• large manufacturing plant with employees distributed in 5 locations

Issue: How to communicate the message to employees in all locations and so that they understand?

Learning points:

• communication method should suit the size of the company

• it is not important that the method of communication be consistent, as long as the messaging is consistent

Situation 7 – you are developing a comprehensive learning strategy for a Government Department

Issue: How do I create a learning environment?

Learning points:

• There are 5 characteristics that describe a learning organization:

1. Systemic problem solving

2. Experimentation to support innovation

3. Learning from experience through action learning

4. Learning from others by benchmarking others in the industry; and

5. Transferring knowledge throughout the organization through such things as rotational assignments

Situation 8 – There is a high turnover of part-time staff because they are led to believe they can obtain full-time position fairly quickly

Key Points:

• morale is decreasing

• training costs and service disruption is increasing

Issue: How do I deal with this false perception among PT employees? How do I fix the hiring process for future PT employees?

Learning points:

Think about the order of things (ie first step)

• listen to and address employees concerns

• deal with misperceptions about career mobility opportunities

• assess potential solutions

• discipline hiring manager for misleading candidates

Situation 9 – An employee survey has indicated some areas which need improvement

Key points:

• target the one that needs the greatest attention

Issue: Which area needs the greatest attention? How do we improve that area?

Learning points:

• the smaller the standard of deviation, the more people that agree with the statement

• make sure enough information is gathered before moving forward with a strategy

Situation 10 – In a company of unionized and non-unionized staff, the unionized staff receive a $500 signing bonus.

Key points:

• non-unionized staff are currently ineligible for any bonuses

• non-unionized staff are unaware of the bonus

Issue: Do we tell the non-unionized staff about the bonus? What if the non-unionized staff find out about the bonus? How will we deal with the situation?

Learning points:

• communication in a proactive manner is critical in order to manage the situation in a positive manner.

• it is important to at least match the gains made by unionized employees

• tying a larger bonus to performance is a good strategy to reinforce achievement